When Peterborough-based Rivercircle invested in one of the first UMC-5X gantry-style simultaneous five-axis machining centres from XYZ Machine Tools (www.xyzmachinetools.com) just over 12 months ago, its ambition was to gain efficiency by transferring work that was being done on three- and four-axis machines.

This was such a success that the company has won numerous new contracts for five-axis-type work, resulting in the arrival of its second UMC-5X.

Production manager Paul Langan says: “We had no work that demanded full five-axis capability when we bought the first XYZ UMC-5X, but we knew we could reduce set-up time and cycle times by moving work from other machines.

"We had no expectation of keeping the machine busy 24/7, but customers began to recognise the capability that we now had, and work kept on coming in.”

The influx of orders for dedicated five-axis work thanks to Rivercircle’s improved productivity with the UMC-5X meant that additional capacity was required, and the success of the first machine from XYZ meant there was no reason for Mr Langan to look anywhere else.

“Work is continuing to move towards five-axis machining; with the two XYZ UMC-5X machines, we can combine operations and become far more efficient, which will ultimately lead to more work as we are more competitive.

"The ease of use of the machines, along with the Heidenhain control that we are familiar with, made our decision to double up straightforward.”

The arrival of the second UMC-5X was enhanced by investment in several seats of Mastercam five-axis software to ensure that there were no bottlenecks in processing the work generated by the additional machining capacity.